Jun 10
WAR’s Realm Imbalances
There have been a few discussions around the interwebs of late about possible Realm imbalances between Order and Destruction; some polls on the selfsame ‘webs seem to indicate an overwhelming predisposition towards Destruction. People are already wringing their hands, going “omg PvP imbalance!”
On the face of it this is a pretty serious issue. PvP actually, you know, matters in Warhammer. In WoW, if I get pwned in Alterac Valley match after Alterac Valley match (which I do) it really only matters to me personally. The fact that the 51-60 bracket for Hordies on the Shadowburn battlegroup is full of simpering idjits that don’t understand the very concept of AV is frustrating but ultimately, not that big a deal.
In WAR, though, a completely imbalanced server could be devastating. Imagine this string of events: Destruction has an overwhelming majority on a particular server. They pwn the crap out of Order in everything from Open World Keep attacking to Scenarios - the good guys are just not able to mount a response. Six months in, the Order folks have never once mounted a real offense against a Destruction capital and there are a bunch of folks at the endgame. They get bitter and angry, and either quit the game or jump to a more Order-friendly server … or perhaps they just perpetuate the problem by rolling a new Destruction character.
Very feasible. But … don’t assume it’s that bad off yet. Here’s why:
- “The bad guys” are the more popular faction in MMO betas … every … single … time. Horde was very, very popular during WoW’s Beta, but the live game was dominated by a preponderance of Alliance characters. This was corrected with the Hordies got the Blood Elves (hotter than Night Elves by far, btw), but between launch and BC there was a population gap on most servers - in some cases as much as 2:1.
- This skewing towards ‘evil’ is without a doubt the result of self-selecting populations. MMO Beta players are, by definition, massive gaming enthusiasts. Most MMO Beta players are veteran gamers, probably grizzled players from a slew of other virtual worlds. As a result, they’re going to skew more towards the hardcore end of the spectrum. Generally speaking, the evil side tends to be a bit more hardcore-ish. Just generally.
- That same self-selection applies to the poll that folks are getting worked up about. That poll is not a representative sample of all the folks that are going to play the game. It’s just indicative of the folks that read these WAR-enthusiast websites and bothered to answer the poll.
- I think the most important thing to keep in mind is that Destruction is probably popular because there are several compelling classes on that side of the war that have already been fully explained. Players who find the healer/nuker role of the Gobbo Shaman even slightly compelling can fully jump behind the Greenskins because they basically know everything there is to know about that class. I can’t think of a single Order class that’s gotten as much attention. Is this Paul and Jeff’s fault? Mebbe; I think it’s just sort of the way things worked out.
Ultimately, I think people like to play the good guys. Enough people are going to want to be that jut-jawwed hero on the Empire side that the Destruction folks are going to have a tough fight on their hands. At the very least, Mythic has promised ‘incentives’ to try to keep the factions balanced - they haven’t released word about what those incentives are yet, but here’s hoping they’re actually on top of this.
I understand the worry … I just think it’s a little early yet.
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They should make those dark elves uglier if this poll proves to be accurate; then I’m sure the populations will even out. Or make the Dwarf Engineer (”Represent!”) ridiculously overpowered. Now that I think about it, I prefer the second option. =P
I agree with you 100%. The potential is there for imbalance and if things end up that way - look out. Bad news. However, these results don’t tell us how the chips will land so it’s a bit too early to freak out about it.
I just hope EA Mythic has the foresight to put population balancing mechanisms in place before the game launches because most of the people who buy this game will stick with the same servers they rolled on launch day. Without some kind of guidance, they may never balance out.
Could also be that because it is a beta, and not the actual full game, people that normally are attracted to the good side try out the evil side knowing that a beta is only temporary and will switch when the game goes gold.
Maybe some of those hardcore players you mentioned, Michael, will play on the good side, but are taking this opportunity to familarize themselves with the evil side’s layout and whatnot. That faction lock for whatever faction you choose on whatever server you choose is still planned, right?
Billzo: That’s exactly what I’m going to do; going to play Order when I get into the Beta because I know I’m going to be a Destruction-boy in Live.
I’d probably do that to if I was in beta. I wonder if that takes something away from the whole “magic” of RvR. Obviously if you have a chance at knowing an unknown known (haha) you’re gonna take it, like seeing how the other side in a PvP centric game works so you’ll be ready. But, I guess to me that seems like reading the cheat guide for a game.
I was also wondering after I posted last night whether or not Mythic is getting enough data about Order’s balance and whatnot if a majority is playing Chaos. I suppose they could do a few tests where they make everyone split half-half and do an Order siege on a Chaos city or things like that, but I’m not sure.
The poll is useless. What we need is a survey.
What class will you play?
What days of the week do you play?
At what times?
Doing what activity?
I think we are a bit off from getting peak concurrent player numbers. There are WoW servers where the number of characters is equally balanced at level 70, but the concurrency numbers show a 2:1 imbalance at prime time.
For WAR it will be very important to compare concurrency numbers, not just pure numerical counts.
[...] MMOG Nation analyzes what a population imbalance could do to WAR. [...]
I’m going to play the hell out of Order and Chaos both.
One suggestion for Mythic would be take a note from Blizzard’s page - let there be incentive to play the underpopulated faction.
In WoW the incentive to decrease battleground queue times sent PVPers to Horde in droves. This served to balance the disparity somewhat, but also ensured that there was incentive to play the underrepresented faction.
if 1) Players have a reason to go to the minority and/or 2) the play experience is not diminished by playing the minority then I dont see the initial draw to Destruction impacting the game negatively.
From this post it sounds like they are already thinking in these terms (”Mythic has promised ‘incentives’ to try to keep the factions balanced…”) I think these guys are way ahead of you. :) trying to make classes more appealing in terms of power, appearance, or hype I think is a really bad way to approach the solution.
- Eater of Worlds